Sowing the seeds of a global revolution

May 28, 2008 — 10.00am

THEY work under the cover of night, armed with seed bombs, chemical weapons and pitchforks. Their tactics are anarchistic, their attitude revolutionary. Their aim: to beautify.

An army of self-styled guerilla gardeners is growing across the world, fighting to transform urban wastelands into horticultural havens. To document and encourage their victories, one of the movement's top generals has written a handbook.

On Guerrilla Gardening, by Richard Reynolds, defines the activity as "the illicit cultivation of someone else's land".

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"Our main enemies are neglect and scarcity of land," says Reynolds, a 30-year-old former advertising employee who wrote the book after his website, guerrillagardening.org, became a global focal point for would-be green-fingered activists.

"Land is a finite resource and yet areas like this are not being used. That seems crazy to me," he says. "And if the authorities want to get in the way of that logic, then we will fight them - but peacefully - through showing them what we can achieve with plants."

As he speaks, Reynolds and several London-based troops are enthusiastically digging over soil in a rough patch of grass outside a tower block in the south-east of the capital.

Defying darkness - and risking arrest for criminal damage - they continue their "attack" on the otherwise grim, grey surroundings, forking in a hefty load of compost and planting lavender and marguerites for a splash of colour and scent.

For those inspired to follow suit, Reynolds's book has tips and advice on everything from the most suitable clothing and what kind of lighting and communication equipment to use, to how to carry out a "seed bombing" raid.

"Scattering seeds is the easiest way to guerilla gardening," he writes. "You do not even have to stop moving to do it … [One guerilla gardener] releases handfuls of Welsh poppy seeds while driving along the M60 motorway."

Reynolds says he was inspired to write the book after his first nocturnal gardening experience outside his 1970s concrete tower block in London, when he discovered he was part of a largely secret but worldwide movement.

"I began because I moved to a tower block and had no garden, and yet all around me there were bits of land that nobody was looking after - so I have made it into my own garden. But it's one that everyone shares and can get involved in," he says.

"I stepped out into the world to cultivate land wherever I liked. The mission was to fight the miserable public flowerbeds around my neighbourhood."

The book charts what it says is a "revolutionary history" of a movement that has its roots in 1970s New York and has since inspired urban dwellers across the world to defy authorities and adopt and cherish neglected public spaces.

Guerilla gardening is a crime in Britain - digging up land you do not own is classed as committing criminal damage - but Reynolds insists it is a victimless one and is clearly unfazed by encounters with police.

"Yes, by law this is criminal damage … but common sense would suggest it is quite the opposite," he says.

At a recent night-time dig on a large roundabout in central London, dozens of police pulled up and ordered him and fellow gardeners to down tools or face arrest.

"We reluctantly withdrew," he says, adding that they returned to finish the job an hour later when the coast was clear.

Reynolds has now largely given up his more mainstream work in advertising and devotes his time to writing about guerilla gardening, maintaining his website and spreading the word.

And while he characterises the activity as a battle and uses the language of war, he insists there are no losers.

"This a win-win war," he writes. "Take a public place of wasted opportunity and turn it into a garden. In time, victory should be clear to everyone, and probably fragrant too."